Best practices for Secure Inpatient Visitor Management

Matthew Lewis, Darwin Rivera, and Duane Foote touch on visitation policies and procedures that help improve experiences and security. They focus on HID’s solution to visitor management for a safe healthcare facility.

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Speaker 1 0:05

Powering trusted identities of the world's people, places, and things every day . Millions of people in more than 100 countries use our products and services to securely access physical and digital Places over 2 billion things that need to be identified , verified, and tracked are connected through h i d Global's Technology.

Speaker 2 0:32

Alright . Hello everyone. Welcome to our very first session, best Practices for Secure Inpatient Visitor Management. So this is gonna be a bit of a , a luncheon series we're gonna do here. I've got Dwayne and Darwin, at least they're in that order on my screen. Um, and we're gonna spend a little time talking about best practices across healthcare. Um, so Safe for Healthcare has been in the market for a while. We'll talk about it for a second. Um, but let's go to today's topics, see what we're gonna discuss. We'll try to make it quick, give you something informative during lunch. Uh, and hope you , uh, have a great day after. So, today we're gonna start on visitation policies and procedures. These should be things that are gonna ultimately help your experience , um, for patients and visitors and other visitors and , and your security as well. Um, notifications are a really important part of ensuring visitors have an overall quality experience. And then something I don't think we always talk about is sometimes you need a little added flexibility. Covid certainly taught us that and we'll discuss that for for a few minutes. Um, and so safe for healthcare, it , it , it is a set of capabilities that really span the ability for a hospital to add security, improve the experience for a number of identities, places, spaces, meet a number of regulations. Um , and today we're gonna focus in a little bit on patients and visitors , um, their interactions with the hospital, how our software can help that. Um, but first, let's get kicked off on the first topic. Um, and DW d Dwayne , I'm gonna kick it over to you here in a second. Um, 'cause one of the things I heard on some recent discussions I was having with either customers or potential customers was around, yeah , how can they know who's coming and going, but then who they're able to say can or can't visit a patient. Um, and you and I have talked about that a little. So what are you seeing out there when you're talking with our accounts, talking with potential new accounts around policies and procedures from a visitation standpoint? So what I , what I've , um, you know, what I've seen and what I've, what I've learned is that, you know , uh, hospitals typically are an open and and inviting environment. Um, but in the last couple years with covid , um, workplace violence or that, that type of concept, you know, hospitals now want to manage care facilities to capture that type of information. Now , um, so we allow visitors or your healthcare facilities allow visitors to come in, but oftentimes patients have specific people that they want to visit, they want to visit, or they don't want to be visited by these individuals. So that's kind of where these policies and procedures come into play as far as one , improving the experience of the patient , so therefore, not having people that they don't want in-depth environment and causing issues amongst the floors where nurses have to deal with , uh, various , uh, disgruntled issues with visitors and patients. And then also providing that means of security, where if there is someone who , um, has committed some sort of an offense against a specific nurse or individual in the hospital, we wanna prevent that person from coming in, or we wanna put that security team on alert knowing that this individual is on our premises. Um, you know, we can't stop them from coming to see their level, but we can also make , uh, make note of the entire environment. All the, the security personnel that this person is on site . It's like Darwin's bringing something up in the software. Yeah, I think , um, dot is is pretty, pretty much spot on with, with , uh, with what I've been speaking of. Um, so in safe , you know, we capture patient information. We have, you know, what they consider to be that p h i information. Um, and then along with that p h i information, we also have the ability to kind of manage who we want to be, let's call it the approved visitors of that particular patient, right? Yeah . And then in this case , uh, Ridge Solomon has certain individuals that have been walk-in visitors, and then there are certain individuals who he has a dedicated for pre-approved. So in our solution, this is where you can actually manage who you want to designate as your approved visitors , um, uh, for this particular patient, right? And then also below that you can also manage the denied visit, right? Um, and these denied visitors are, you know, Christopher and Solomon might be cousins and they've never gotten along. Uh , maybe they have it falling out , uh, maybe Solomon is in the hospital because of Christopher. So we want to prevent situations like that from happening inside the healthcare facility. So we need , we can now manage the approved and denied list , uh, for those patients. Very nice. Very nice. And I get that would also then allow that hospital. Um , I know some of what was discussed , uh, still when Covid was kind of fresh kind of ending was knowing how many people can come and go into a room at any time, right? So, right , exactly. Maybe it's only two people in a room, or one person in a room depending on the ward or what's going on. Correct. Yeah. A lot of, a lot of health facilities are still trying to enforce that concept of restricting visitors to patient just for population and security reasons, right? So our solution allows you to determine , uh, set a set point of how many visitors each patient can have, and then , you know, we can have certain policies where we can restrict your guest services or your, your security guard from checking in individuals. Aside from that, there are situations where, you know, end of life situations where we have to override those things, which the software allows you to do as well. Darwin , anything else you want to kind of highlight in the software patient level , uh, approve or denied visitors. You can also have on the background the ability of the final , a watch list for , uh, individuals, you know, persons of interest that can be Applicable for , for the rest of the hospital. That that could be these virtual employees , uh, somebody that, that, that needs to be kept for promises. And you can, you can define, you know, also , uh, you know, those persons work , your, your reception desk or your visitor , uh, uh, uh, or desk and can identify those persons and a accordingly, either by denying them access or, or, you know, using , uh, information to , uh, you know, contact security or contact the authorities. Okay . Yeah, that's a good one . What about, I can see a situation where those two worlds may collide. Um, maybe I'm there to see Dwayne , and last week I was there and calls a ruckus. Um , what happens when that sh when, you know, kind of in that situation where, you know , I've got a reason to be there, I'm there to see, see Dwayne , and yet at the same time I'm kind of a person of interest. Like, like what's kind of, how do we address that? How , how would a hospital address that? How would you suggest they do it? Either of you . I could take that one. Dorin mm-hmm . <affirmative> . So I think , um, so that's a great question, Matthew. And I think , um, again, hospitals typically, you don't wanna stop a family member or a loved one from going to see a patient, right? I mean, that's, that's kind of like rule number one. Um, that's not, that's not possible. However, the solution has an option called person of interest, which essentially what Darl is referring to is through that watch list , we can put the security staff on alert. So we're not gonna trigger the bells and whistles and emails and so forth, but maybe the guest services or the check-in desk or the security guard, whoever's checking that person in, is notified through the software and they can now take proper action. Whether that policy of the healthcare facility is to notify the security guard that's sitting at that front desk, it is, maybe it's a policy to notify everyone, but that person is now , um, uh, aside as a person of interest. So we're not gonna stop them from coming in. But we are aware, we being the healthcare facility and the security team are aware that this person is on site , this person is a person of interest because they've done something to , um, to a maybe a staff member or a nursing , uh, a , a nurse administrator or a nurse in that particular facility, you know? And , and , and this is where, you know, when when you're looking at Edwin, the, the record itself gets created. Uh, you have the , you know, you have not only physical description, but you also have additional information that will be provided or we presented to your, your desk , uh, uh, to, you know, with , with under , you know, what, what instructions are. Uh, you know, when that person comes in, contact the authorities or, or you know, the reasons why that person, you know , uh, why is this this to be either denied or you can't, you can't actually add additional , uh, uh, information. So , uh, who needs to be notified if , if it's , you know, it's only , uh, campus security that will be needed in this case, or if you have a , uh, an additional, you know , uh, you need to call the authorities, or you need to alert somebody , uh, in corporate security , uh, to , as part of the, of , of the process when that person so shops . So , uh, you have , you have that flexibility in, in the , uh, of what you can do and , and let , you know, hospitals are, are sensitive areas and, you know, we don't want, you know, especially in end of life situations, we don't want to deny access to some persons, but, you know, at the end of the day, we wanna keep everybody safe and , and , uh, make sure that we , we understand who is on campus and we can act court . So that's , that makes total sense. Thanks for that. So , um, you'll kind of tap based around the next topic almost a little bit here when you're talking about notifications and , and letting security and stuff know. Um, if you don't mind slipping over to our , uh, our pretty colorful slide here, Darwin , um, one of the things we added more recently , um, Dwayne , thanks for championing, you know, this kind of mass notification I guess you could call it, or emergency management type notifications. Um , a hospital is, I mean, it is a cacophony of emotions. People are on high, everyone is on high. Um, lots of potential situations could arise. Also, I'm looking at, you know, who I'm in at a meeting with and whether it's a snow storm in New York, a tornado here in Texas, or a hurricane for you in Florida, or, or in pr. You know, there's a lot that a hospital may need to make a notification about. Um, so Dwayne , you wanna talk a little bit about how, how that feature has come about, what you're hearing and seeing from either our accounts or, or leaders of the space in that, that, so that's , yeah, yeah. Good . Good point. Matthew . You know , so I believe, and, and , and this is something that we've heard over and over again, and I'm so elated that this is now an option within the application is, you know, we have the ability to , uh, to notify visitors when they're on site . Um, if there's a , uh, in Texas you guys have hail, you know, your tremendous weather, hail, you know, a baseball size hail , right? In New York, we have heavy, heavy, heavy winds to the point where powers of brownouts go out, right? And , and Darwin, and you, you're in Florida, you know, and at you guys have those, those heavy, heavy rainfalls that, you know, can literally flood streets . So the ability to, to, to, you know, mass notify those visitors that are on onsite is vital , um, not only to a , to a visitor management system, but just, just to put people on alert to let them understand and know what's going on. Obviously, not to panic, however, this is what's going on and these are the proper procedures that you may need to do. Maybe we need to evacuate from this building, or maybe you need to head over to this particular part of the hospital where , um, you know, it's a bit more safer and more sturdy of if you're out in the Midwest with the, with the , um, earthquakes and so forth. So , or excuse me, on , on the West coast. Um, so yeah, so in the software, you actually have that ability. There are some, some, some tools that are needed to , um, make this option available , um, and , and usable, but for the most part, it's a native part of the solution. Um , and it's applicable to both the healthcare side as well as the non-healthcare side, or what I like to call the enterprise digital management side as well. This is a fix that is, that is actually very easy to, to use. Uh , right now. There's two ways you can access it. You can access it from the admin or you can access it from the , uh, emergency broadcast. So, and when you are , uh, you know , uh, accessing this feature , uh, presently , we, we, we notify through , uh, short messaging systems and some message. So you get a text to your , uh, to your , uh, uh, phone. Uh , so from this, this, this screen, a , an a , uh, an administrator can define what messages and provide instructions. So like, for example , uh, in this case, this top box will give you , uh, an explanation or , or short expansion of the , uh, the incident. And then, you know, you can define what type of emergency is or what type of notification , uh, you know, what locations might be affected. And then you'd have directions for, for your, your visitors , uh, for, you know , to, you know, to respond to, to the incident that we're notifying them . Uh, currently the , the solution supports , uh, S M ss, but we have , uh, the next, the next iteration will , will support also notifications to , uh, email addresses. Uh , it will require that we capture either , uh, a mobile phone number or an email during, during check-in for the users for , for the notification. And as far as the infrastructure besides having , uh, saved , you know, you will need to have either an email server or a access to an S M Ss service to deliver the, the text messages, you know , bring back to dwe . Yeah, no, those, those are great points. Again , um, I , you know, that last point you made about the email, and , you know , um, it's often difficult to capture people's mobile numbers for various reasons. Email sometimes seems to be the best alternative. And , uh, again, you know, us with forward thinking that we're gonna eventually, you know, implement that email option as well as the SS m s. So again, just capturing the idea that we're always forward thinking , um, with the solution. There you go. I like that commercial. All right , um, we got one more topic to hit on. Uh , and this is kind of an interesting one. Um, everyone's tired of hearing about covid, I'm sure. However, it's interesting that I think it's gonna leave an indelible stamp on this space, Dwayne . Um, whether it is kinda what you said at the beginning, which is it's taking something that was a very open environment and either applying some level of restrictions across it , um, taking what was very porous and making it something where the teams can control and understand who's what, when, where, why, how , all of those things. But another thing that came out of it was we all had vaccines. They all had certain, you know, attributes that you needed to be aware of if someone was coming , um, on site , I'm sure. Um, and then, you know, another thing we're hearing , um, much more prevalently, and I think it lends more to the experience aspect , um, and providing a better experience to patients, to visitors really does help with security in the long run , um, and a number of capacities. But it's being able to , um, add in a field to capture preferred, you know, pronouns for instance, or something to that effect. So , um, you and I have talked a little bit about some of the use cases for , um, additional fields, I guess you could say. Uh, what are you hearing from customers? What are they looking for? Why are they using it? Are there other things that are starting to crop up that really add value to a little bit of enhanced flexibility with , uh, God , this extension capability of the software? Yeah, Matthew, the , the driving factor for this, you stated it was covid, right? Um, you know, everyone got vaccine vaccines. Every vaccine has , uh, a random alpha numeric number. Healthcare facilities were requiring that when a visitor comes in, they also, not only do they capture maybe screening questions, which we also have, but there's also, we want to capture that covid number, right? And we wanna be able to store per that patient , uh, at some point we can anonymize that information and delete that information if it was considered to be , um, you know, p h i information, but however, that was the driving factor behind the additional fields option. Now, can we use it for various other things, R s V virus, p p e requirements , um, uh, you mentioned it before, preferred names , um, capturing that information about the visitor. Um, so those, those are the, the , um, the use , the use cases around those additional fields. It hasn't been a , um, an extreme hard requirement for individuals. But I will tell you, in probably the last three RFPs, or let's say five RFPs, three of them were asking for a function similar to this about adding more content to what we have outside of the basic stuff out of the cos deployment. And again, it's, it's, it's not only, although we're, we're focusing on healthcare, it's also an option that's specific, or, or it can be implemented both on the healthcare visitor management side as well as the enterprise manage and , um, enterprise visitor management side where you have a technician walking in with , uh, you know, tons of equipment. We wanna jot down all the equipment they may have, maybe capture some images and things like that. So it works on both sides of the, the visitor management space to get for start . Yeah. And , and , you know, just, just to piggy back and in the solution itself, you know, you can , you can , you know, there , there is a , there's a configuration , uh, item that can allow you to add those custom fields. Uh, normally, you know, in the past, you know, on the biggest frameworks for , for there's another applications, adding that flexibility was, was , was very difficult because in many cases it would entail, you know , uh, expensive code changes. In this case, we can add it a , a field, a custom field , uh, you know, by , uh, you know, add , you know, just, you know, adding to the configuration and, you know, you can add it to identities or the visitors, in this case, the identity will be your internal users and the visitor would , you know, visitor data that you need to capture. And , uh, you can use that information to address any, any individual needs that, that you have , uh, within, within the organization. That be it , uh, healthcare related or, or asset related . Uh, so you can, you can have , uh, you can , you can capture that information, you know, with the pronouns or the preferred name , uh, you know, any, any other sample , uh, fields that you might need to, to address within, within , uh, your , your in internal requirements. Very nice. Very nice. Okay. Um, be watching it. So , so again, we , we spent a little time talking about , uh, policies and procedures around visitors , um, particularly those that are there to see a patient. Um, a few things we can do to help improve the experience and the security. Um, really at the end of the day, those policies and procedures are about helping someone, the right, someone get in to see their loved one or whoever they're there to see. Um, and, and in many ways, Dwayne , I , I , you and I talked about it a little bit. To me, it's not, it's not, nor should we say it's solving all of, you know, the workplace violence issues, but it's certainly a little, it's an ingredient that should help in, in an overall series of steps and programs to be able to add a little bit of control, little bit of granularity of those controls that our customers are gonna have. Um, I don't know if you've got any other thoughts on , on kind of that topic. No. Yeah. So, you know , uh, Rome wasn't built in a deck , right? So we're not gonna solve these workplace violence issues immediately, however , um, brick by brick, I think this is a brick in the foundation of trying to, trying to alleviate and reduce a lot of that workplace violence. Yeah, I know when I was talking, there were a few , um, few hospitals I spoke to at , at I s D West out in , um, Vegas, and when this topic came up, they lit up. Yeah . 'cause it's one of the things that was, you know, really kind of top of mind for them. So , um, I love having that, you know, level of flexibility for the customers, the, the new notification stuff. I think it's just, it , it's interesting to see how , um, things you might not think about being able to notify everyone that's on site that, oh, you know, move here, go there , um, really is something that our, our hospital customers are, are needing. Um, so I think that's a Darwin, you , you mentioned it a little bit, but I think it's one that it gives them the controls they need to make sure that everyone is safe. Yeah. 'cause like , nor normally, you know, the, the , the challenge that this addresses is that traditional mass notification , uh, tools, you know, they're, they're very good at notifying the people that you know, and you have control of it. In this case mostly, you know, employees or, or, or, or individuals that you already have some type of database of that information. Now the paradigm changes when you have a , a , an eter , uh, body of , of , of visitors that, you know, you, you don't, you don't interact with them , uh, on , on a daily basis. So, you know, but being able to capture that information in your visitor management system and use it to notify you, not only have the ability of protecting your, your, your, your internal users, you know, traditional , uh, notifications, but you can also give protection to those that, that, that, that, that population that was, was left behind , uh, on traditional notification , uh, solutions . So you can also, you know , give that protection to, to your visitors and add to, to your branding and, and, and to, you know, the , uh, the , the services and , and , and the value that the , the , the healthcare organization provides to the local community. And visiting . I think that last part is so important. Um , serving the community in a better way. Uh , the , the , the last thing we talked about, again, additional fields, it , it might bring back some bad memories for people. 'cause kinda what, what helped us kind of spur this was around covid, but I think it's so important because it is such a dynamic space. Stuff is happening all the time. New vaccines are coming out, the need to capture different, different information at times . So , um, to me, knowing that, should I check in with my child, you know, if I have to add in a couple more things that maybe make everyone else safe, it definitely is worth it for that community. As you were talking about a second ago, darling. So , um, I don't know if y'all have got thoughts kind of on that, that flexibility, a little bit added flexibility there Yeah. To round us out, ju Yeah, just like you pointed out, the, the healthcare environment is a very dynamic one this days , you know, it used to be the slippery part of , of , of town as far as like, you know, changes in technology, changes in the regulatory environments. For the last five, 10 years, I've , I've seen , uh, dramatic changes in, in , in anything from the adoption, you know, the widespread adoption of electronic , uh, record management systems to, to, you know, new changes in the regulations both at, at the local and the federal level that it , you know, using , uh, additional fields can also help , uh, you know , uh, be , uh, uh, you know, service like , sort of like insurance policy against any atory requirements that might come in in the future. Especially, you know , uh, with, with maybe, you know, the possibility of OSHA looking at, at, at workplace safety. Uh, might, might , might be something. And , you know, not , not to leave behind, you know, potential liability , uh, but , you know, but , you know, exercising due care and due diligence , uh, protection of, of their employees and the general public. So that , that that's, you know, the flexibility. It , it , it goes beyond, you know, the , the , the , the , the , the covid , uh, uh, uh, requirements. But it just can be , it can be applied to internal processes. It could be applied in , in , in a regulatory manner to capture the data that you're gonna need that you didn't know that you needed, but you now have the ability, you know , to configuration without having to have an act of Congress to be able to capture it and , and have it available for reporting purposes. A literal act of Congress in this case, potentially <laugh> <laugh> . Cool. All right . Well, Dwight , do you want to , you got any final thoughts? You're your eyes and ears on the street. Anything you want to wrap us out with? Otherwise, I'll send us off. No, I just think that these are some really good points , um, that , uh, are , are very prominent and prevalent talking to the individuals in the healthcare security directors, guest services. Um, the , these are three main, main topics that we have discussions about , um, regularly. So, you know, it's important to, to relay that information and get that information out to the masses. Yeah. Cool. Cool. Well, I appreciate both of your times. Um, we'll do this again maybe next week , um, depending on if you're watching this later , um, go check out the other videos. We're gonna do another one on , um, similar kind of cadence, tone and tenor for, for outpatient. Um, and then we're gonna talk a little bit about kiosks , uh, a little bit down the road. Um, I think it's, it , it's a really interesting, actually, Darwin, a lot of the things you said at the end, I'll just kind of leave it with, it's really interesting. It's just how much is changing, and it seems like with healthcare, that that pace of change is, is increasing. And so, you know, having some tools and controls that provide a foundation within an opportunity for our customers to expand over time and add here, take their , you know, kind of mold, the mold, the solution overall to fit what's, what's happening within their environment. I think it's gonna be key to being successful , um, improving patients experiences, staff and safe safety and security. Um, and overall it's gonna be good for the community. So , um, I thank you both very much, Anna. Thank you for setting us up with this and uh, I'll see you too next time and , uh, have a great day. Take care everyone. Good weekend. Appreciate it. Bye-bye. Take care .